Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Asked About Hurricane Ian Looters, Notes ‘You Loot, We Shoot’ Warnings.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has his hands full with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. It pretty much trashed southwest Florida and damaged homes all the way across the central part of the state.

As business owners and residents begin the massive cleanup process, he’s stressing law and order. And when discussing those who would take advantage of the destruction, the Governor noted that property owners had written “You loot, we shoot” on the plywood used to board up their buildings.

Florida Politics covered it . . .

As Florida recovers from Hurricane Ian, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a moral plea against looting that appears to have some firepower behind it.

Speaking near Fort Myers in the leveled community of Matlacha on Friday, the Republican Governor relayed one sight he saw in Punta Gorda in neighboring Charlotte County the day prior.

“They boarded up all the businesses, and there are people that wrote on their plywood, ‘you loot, we shoot,’” DeSantis said. “At the end of the day, we are not going to allow lawlessness to take advantage of this situation. We are a law-and-order state, and this is a law-and-order community, so do not think that you’re going to go take advantage of people who’ve suffered misfortune.”

You don’t hear many Governors mention “you loot, we shoot” these days. But DeSantis isn’t like many governors and given the reality on the ground, there’s no reason to play around with vultures who would take advantage of a mass tragedy.

The story continued . . .

The Governor also commented on the grit and resilience of the community and called for “all hands on deck” regarding the rule of law. However, his dispatch was choppy, making the overall statement unclear.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said he had spoken at length to Attorney General Ashley Moody, who was also on the scene.

 “We are not going to tolerate — and I mean zero tolerance — when we say anyone that thinks they’re going to thrive on the residents of this county or state when we just took a horrific hit, I can guarantee you that is not going to happen,” Marceno said.

Scam artists will likely not get off easy either, judging from the law-and-order tone from the state officials.

 

The snowflakes writing the story to wrung their hands over DeSantis’ choice of words.

“You loot, we shoot,” isn’t even new in the hurricane context, used when Hurricane Harvey struck Houston and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. But others see the phrase as stoking violence and division.

Violence and division? The only division will be between looters and law-abiding residents and business owners.

SAF Sues to Block Connecticut’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .

The Second Amendment Foundation today filed suit in federal district court, challenging the ban on so-called “assault weapons” in Connecticut, and asking for declaratory and injunctive relief.

SAF is joined by the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and three private citizens, Eddie Grant, Jr., Jennifer Hamilton, and Michael Stiefel. Named as defendants are Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, plus James Rovella, commissioner of the state’s Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection; Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin and several other officials. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Doug Dubitsky of North Windham, Conn., Craig C. Fishbein of Wallingford, Conn., and Cameron L. Atkinson of New Haven.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. 

Connecticut’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” dates back to 1993. The state criminalizes the possession, sale or transfer of such firearms—about 160 guns named in four subsections—even though many of these guns are in common use across the country. 

“The ban was previously upheld, but that was before the Supreme Court handed down its Bruen ruling earlier this year,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “That landmark decision eliminated the ‘two-part test’ which included an interest-balancing provision that didn’t pass constitutional muster.”

According to the lawsuit, the current ban deprives “responsible citizens of their Second Amendment rights under the guise of providing a panacea for social problems that Connecticut remains unable to solve.” 

Gottlieb said there is no historical foundation for such a ban, and the complaint actually details the historical development of firearms including repeating rifles developed and manufactured in Connecticut and elsewhere. The lawsuit also mentions incidents in which modern semiautomatic rifles were used by private citizens to stop violent crimes.

Update: Man Who Ran Over Republican Teen in North Dakota Now Charged With Felony Murder

Charges have been upgraded for Shannon Brandt, the suspect who allegedly ran over 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson on September 18 for being a Republican in McHenry, North Dakota.

According to local news, Foster County State’s Attorney Kara Brinster filed new criminal charges against Brandt including Murder, which is a Class AA Felony, and Duty in Accident Involving Death or Injury, a Class B Felony. The charges of vehicular homicide were dropped in lieu of the upgrade.

Early on the morning of Sunday, September 18, Brandt is accused of running down Ellingson, of Grace City, North Dakota, after a street dance held at a local bar. Brandt told State Radio that the young man was part of a “Republican extremist group” and that his targeting of Ellingson was politically motivated.

There is “no evidence” Ellingson was part of any such group, according to North Dakota police. Witnesses have said that the two did not engage in a verbal dispute.

New details emerged from the new filings, as Brandt called 911 and spoke with dispatcher, or State Radio, and said, “I just wanna ask you a question, am I going to go to prison?”

Brandt also said “he [Ellingson] wasn’t going to let me go, I hit him” and “he’s subdued.”

“He can’t do anything to me now,” Brandt told the dispatcher.

An autopsy showed that there were no acceleration marks or skid marks near the location of the 18-year-old victim’s body, indicating no rushed or threatened vehicle acceleration.

Further, the autopsy indicates that Ellingson’s primary injuries were caused from the SUV running over him, not from an initial impact.

The 18-year-old called his mother as Brandt chased him in his SUV to ask if she knew Brandt. She told her son she was on her way to get him directly before Brandt allegedly murdered the young man by running him down.

Man Exchanges 3D Printed Guns for $21,000 at New York Gun Buyback Program

Since 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James has been encouraging residents of her state to participate in her office’s gun buyback program, wherein the government offers money for firearms, “no questions asked.”

At an event held in Utica, NY in August, one man allegedly gamed the system, walking away with thousands of dollars after turning in over 100 guns he made using his 3D printer.

According to WKTV, the man, known only as “Kem,” had seen posts online about people pulling off such stunts, and decided to try it for himself.

Using his $200 3D printer, Kem quickly birthed a battery of plastic firearms, and drove six hours from his home to Utica, where the buyback program was holding an event.

“I 3D-printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms,” said Kem.

Kem explained that upon arriving in Utica, he was asked how many guns he wished to turn in, to which he replied, “110.”

After spending the rest of the day negotiating with staff, Kem was presented with 42 gift cards, each worth $500, making the total payout $21,000.

“I’m sure handing over $21,000 in gift cards to some punk kid after getting a bunch of plastic junk was a rousing success,” Kem told WKTV, adding that, “gun buybacks are a fantastic way of showing, number one, that your policies don’t work, and, number two, you’re creating perverse demand.”

He argued that programs such as James’ “don’t actually reduce crime whatsoever.”

According to James’ office, the August 27 buyback event “resulted in the collection of 296 guns, including 177 ghost guns, 42 long guns, 41 handguns, 33 non-working guns, and 3 assault rifles.”

Ghost guns are firearms that are unregistered and unregulated, often built by users themselves. Kem’s 3D-printed weapons would fit into this category.

Since 2019, James’ program has resulted in the buyback of 3,500 guns, and she has no intention of stopping any time soon.

In a statement to KWTV, her office slammed Kem for his actions, and explained that they have “adjusted [their] policies to ensure that no one can exploit this program again for personal gain.”

Intruder Shot during Home Invasion in Troup County

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) – Your home is your safe place, but it also can be targeted by criminals. Now, a Troup County man is in a Columbus hospital tonight recovering from a gunshot wound.

According to the Troup County Sheriff’s Office, a man broke into a home and soon found out, the hard way, that he picked the wrong house.

“The homeowner confronted him. She had a handgun and she fired one round striking him in the lower abdomen,” says Sgt. Stewart Smith, Troup County Sheriff’s Office.

According to Sgt. Smith, 36-year-old Chadwick Lyons forced his way into a home on Ginger Circle in the Young Acres subdivision around 2 A.M. Wednesday.

Sgt. Smith says the Homeowner, a woman, in the home With two children, heard a voice in the hallway and Smith says she had every right to protect her family.

Rachael Kramer lives nearby, she says she would have done the same thing.

“It’s just me and Charlie, so if I her another voice in my home, I’m going to do the same thing. Shoot first and ask questions later,” says Kramer.

“You certainly have the right to have a gun in your home, the right to have gun on your person, the right to have gun in your car. It’s certainly your right to defend yourself in a situation like this,” says Smith.

Smith says after Lyons got shot he ran over to the neighbor’s house for help.

“Troup County 911 received a call from a resident that a man had come to their home had been shot,“ says Smith, “He was seeking assistance, they didn’t know at the time what had occurred.”

Troup County Sheriff’s Office says before the home invasion, Lyons broke into at least 4 cars in the neighborhood.

“I’m making sure my doors are locked, my screen doors are locked. You’re going to have to make a lot of noise to get in my house, you’re going to at least wake me up,” says Kramer.

What’s interesting is how the blame gets assigned to the federal, state, or territorial level depending on where the Republicans are.

Do Republicans Cause Hurricanes?
The corporate media gears up to give DeSantis the Katrina treatment.

With the grim inevitability of Greek tragedy, three things always happen when a hurricane makes landfall in the United States. First, the storm will be touted by the corporate media as evidence that anthropogenic climate change presents an existential threat to humanity and the planet. Second, anyone who dares question the accuracy of this claim will be either ignored or denounced as a dangerous anti-science “denier.” Third, if the hurricane happens to hit a state with a GOP governor, he will be blamed for causing any resultant death and destruction.

In the case of Hurricane Ian, all three commenced more than 24 hours before the storm actually arrived in Florida. On Tuesday, CNN talking head Don Lemon contradicted Jamie Rhome — the acting director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center — about the effect of climate change on the storm’s intensity. Rhome tried to stay on topic and cautioned Lemon against linking any single weather event to climate change. Lemon nonetheless insisted on providing this brilliant scientific analysis: “Well, listen, I grew up there and these storms are intensifying. Something is causing them to intensify.”

Also on Tuesday, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell told White House reporters that she had concerns about the complacency of some Floridians who hadn’t experienced a major hurricane, but she characterized FEMA’s interaction with state officials as “excellent.” Predictably, Politico misrepresented the administrator’s comments in order to create a false narrative about Florida’s allegedly “lax response” to storm warnings. Later, a “reporter” hit Gov. Ron DeSantis with this: “FEMA Administrator Criswell said today that she acknowledged concerns about Florida’s, as it was said, ‘lax response’ to the storm so far.” DeSantis immediately shut him down:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me a break. That is nonsense. Stop politicizing, OK? Stop it. We declared a state of emergency when this thing wasn’t even formed.… Honestly, you’re trying to attack me I get, but you’re attacking these other people who have worked very hard. So, that’s just totally false. I don’t think we have ever, certainly since I’ve been governor, declared a state of emergency this early.

Politico later executed a stealth edit, replacing “lax response” with a more accurate description of Criswell’s comments. If the reporter’s question sounds familiar, it’s not an illusion. The “lax response” trope has been used by the media for decades against GOP governors and presidents when no genuine fault can be found with their reactions to natural disasters. Remember when President George W. Bush was blamed for the Katrina disaster after routing more funds to Louisiana for civil works projects than any other state? Never mind that Louisiana public officials misappropriated much of the money that was meant to reinforce the levees.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, DeSantis was taking incoming fire from the Fourth Estate as the storm was about to make landfall. The Weekly Dish’s Andrew Sullivan was generous enough to offer this inspired insight: “DeSantis now being tested as a governor not a troll.” This is unusually trite for Sullivan. His effusions, while frequently vicious and sometimes a little crazy, are usually a lot more original. Where this storm is concerned, though, he has fallen in with the theme adopted by most of the corporate media during the past 48 hours — Hurricane Ian is a timely test of DeSantis’ leadership. Here’s an example of the genre from TIME:

Ron DeSantis is about to face the most consequential 72 hours of his political career.… DeSantis, however, remains largely untested. For three years, he’s been able to pick culture-war fights with teachers and Walt Disney World without the pesky distraction of serious governing. He doesn’t have a lot of the compassionate chits that his predecessors had stored up in advance.

If the author of this piece believes that DeSantis has been “largely untested,” he should consider leaving journalism. In reference to hurricanes, DeSantis dealt effectively with the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm that hit the Florida Panhandle just before he was elected in 2018. Moreover, he responded to COVID-19 more effectively than any other large-state governor in the country, despite Florida’s huge percentage of elderly — and therefore vulnerable — residents. He has rarely received credit for that by corporate media, which will doubtless bury any good news about his response to Hurricane Ian.

As bad as the media coverage has been on Hurricane Ian, however, the dumbest response to Florida’s latest storm came from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). During a discussion with the renowned climate experts of Morning Joe, she delivered herself of this gem: “We just did something about climate change for the first time in decades. That’s why [Democrats] have to win this as that hurricane bears down on Florida. We’ve got to win in the midterms.” Thus, ipso facto, Republicans do cause hurricanes and DeSantis must get the Katrina treatment to prevent him and the GOP from destroying Gaia.

Study: Drink 2 to 3 cups of coffee a day for longer life, better heart health.

Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day is associated with a longer lifespan and lower risk of heart disease compared with avoiding the brew, a new study suggests.

The findings from the large, observational study applied to different preparations: ground, instant and decaffeinated.

All coffee varieties “were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” the study’s primary author, Peter M. Kistler, said in a news release.

The findings were published Tuesday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology.

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“The results suggest that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle,” said Kistler, head of clinical electrophysiology research at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

Kistler, who has joint appointments as professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne and Monash University, is described as “an international leader” in cardiac arrhythmia research.

Aside from caffeine, coffee contains 100-plus biologically active components, and these non-caffeinated compounds were likely responsible for the “positive relationships” observed between coffee drinking, cardiovascular disease and survival, he said.

Citing a dearth of information on how different coffee preparations affect heart health and survival, the researchers explored the associations between types of coffee and arrhythmias, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, ischemic stroke and death.

They used data on nearly 450,000 adults between the ages of 40 and 69 in the U.K. Biobank. All were free of arrhythmias or other cardiovascular disease at baseline.

Participants completed a questionnaire on how many cups of coffee they drank each day and whether they usually sipped instant, ground, such as cappuccino or filtered, or decaffeinated.

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They then were grouped into six daily intake categories, ranging from none to more than five cups of coffee per day. Over a follow-up period that averaged 12 1/2 years, the investigators compared coffee drinkers to non-drinkers.

They used medical records and death records to track the incidence of arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease and death, after adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, smoking status, and tea and alcohol consumption, the release said.

Overall, 27,809 participants, or 6.2%, died during follow-up.

All types of coffee were linked with a reduction in death from any cause. However, the greatest risk reduction occurred from drinking two to three cups of coffee per day. Compared to no coffee drinking, it was associated with a 14%, 27% and 11% lower likelihood of death for decaffeinated, ground and instant preparations, respectively.

Cardiovascular disease was diagnosed in 43,173, or 9.6%, of participants during follow-up. All coffee types were associated with reduced heart disease but, again, the lowest risk was observed in people drinking two to three cups a day.

That, compared to no coffee drinking, was associated with a 6%, 20%, and 9% reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease for decaffeinated, ground and instant, respectively.

Ground and instant coffee, but not decaffeinated, also was associated with a reduction in arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation, the researchers said.

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Rob Romano

The lawsuit complains about an advertisement for a handguard:

Families of three Uvalde shooting survivors sue school district, gun makers, city officials and others

Image
“brazen and provocative marketing”Image
The lawsuit says that AR-15s “are unsuited for home defense, recreation, or casual use and possession.”Image
The lawsuit says the gun store should have known one of its customers would be a mass shooter because they were “always alone and quiet”:Image
According to the lawsuit, Daniel Defense’s guns are weapons of war, but their advertisements are misleading because they use military imageryImage
The lawsuit says that “AR-15 style rifles, rapid-fire trigger systems, and high-capacity magazines are used by most often by young adults in mass shootings.”Image
The lawsuit says that “AR-15 style rifles destroy human bodies, limbs, organs, and tissue, pulverize the human body, explode, and cause immediate death.”Image

• • •

Anti-gun politicians aim for private property gun ban

From Hawaii to New Jersey anti-gun officials are scrambling to adopt sweeping restrictions on the right to carry modeled after New York’s latest infringement on our Second Amendment rights. That includes a de-facto ban on concealed carry on all private property, despite language in the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen that made it clear broad and expansive “sensitive places” don’t comport with a general right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we’re taking a look at a couple of the latest indigo-blue locales to adopt New York’s model legislation; Hawaii County and the state of New Jersey. Both places have long been hostile to the right to keep and bear arms, and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the “good cause” requirement that the jurisdictions have used to deny almost every applicant in years past, the goal is to now restrict where folks can carry as much as possible in addition to continuing to impose as many barriers as possible to all those who want to exercise that right.

Hawaii County council member Aaron Chung says Supreme Court “opened the door” for his exhaustive list of places where concealed carry may soon be banned by not explicitly defining the limits of ‘sensitive places”, but he’s ignoring what Justice Clarence Thomas actually had to say about trying to broadly define most places open to the public (including all private property by default) as off-limits to the exercise of our Second Amendment rights; “expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of “sensitive places” far too broadly. Respondents’ argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense.”

The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self defense.

I don’t know of any other right that’s de-facto forbidden on private property unless it’s explicitly authorized in writing by the property owner either. I’ve never once encountered a sign on a business that said “Freedom of Speech Welcome Here”. Then again, I’ve also never run across a law charging people with a felony for unlawfully uttering their opinion in someone else’s home without prior permission as New York’s de-facto ban on concealed carry on private property does.

The glaring constitutional issues with this language isn’t worrisome to anti-gun politicians like New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, however. He’s still hellbent on criminalizing the right to carry in almost all circumstances by adopting the New York model.

Murphy issued an executive order shortly after the court ruling, requiring state agencies to review their statutes and regulations and determine whether they could designate gun-free zones. But so far, no legislation barring guns from public spaces in New Jersey has been introduced.

On Tuesday, Murphy said churches, entertainment venues and even private property “unless you the homeowner explicitly says otherwise” would be designated as gun-free areas under a proposed bill.

We need that now based on the actions of this very right-wing U.S. Supreme Court,” he said.

He said action hasn’t come more quickly for “mostly benign reasons here” — due to other legislative activity and because the Legislature only recently came back into session.

“I don’t want to speak for [the Legislature], but I’m confident this ball will be rolling, and God willing, will get something sooner than later,” he said.

God willing, the courts will have shut down the expansive list of “sensitive places” by the time New Jersey’s legislature gets to work on its own list of gun-free zones. If that doesn’t happen, then the state will be facing another lawsuit just like New York; one I’m confident it will ultimately lose. We still have plenty of challenges ahead of us, but these anti-gun politicians are on the wrong side of history and the Constitution and we aren’t going to rest until we’ve secured our right to keep and bear arms from their authoritarian power grabs.

Joe Biden Trashes Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Massive Self-Awareness Fail

As a massive hurricane slammed into Florida on Wednesday evening, the President of the United States attended a fundraiser for the Democratic Governor’s Association. That followed a banner day where Joe Biden asked where a deceased congresswoman was at an event and got confused trying to exit a stage later at the White House.

The optics of Biden hobnobbing with his party’s elite while people’s homes while devastation descended on the Sunshine State wasn’t lost on many observers. So what did the president talk about?

If you guess that he ranted about threats to “democracy,” which is basically the one-note Democrats continue to desperately play over and over this election cycle, pick up your winnings at the window. But it was who Biden cited as an example that raised eyebrows. Apparently, he attacked Giorgia Meloni’s rise, insinuating that what “happened in Italy” illustrated the destruction of “democracy” around the globe.

For those keeping score at home, we are now at the point where Democrats will quite literally claim that a democratic election, voted on by the people, is actually a threat to democracy if the “wrong” people win. In this case, Meloni’s right-wing coalition won an overwhelming victory after Italy’s left ran the country into the ground.

The lack of self-awareness here is so thick you can cut it with a knife. It is self-evident that you can’t claim that “democracy” is in danger if you yourself don’t respect the results of democratic elections. Is Biden suggesting that Italy’s election was rigged? Or is he really saying that any outcome that goes against the globalist left is illegitimate on its face?

Whatever the reason, what Biden is promoting is not “democracy.” It’s authoritarianism wrapped in meaningless fluff disguised as respect for freedom. Real democracy can’t exist if voters aren’t able to choose the representatives without condemnation and hyperbolic proclamations from their supposed betters, of which Biden is decidedly not. The World Economic Forum and the like doesn’t get to decide who governs the people. The people do.

In short, it is not Italy’s Meloni and her coalition that are a threat to free and fair governance. Rather, it is the global left that seeks to cram down its ideology at all costs, even if it means spitting on the choices of voters that go against their wishes.

The backlash that happened in Italy is just the beginning. The left has destroyed so much that so many people held dear, and while Biden lashes out at Meloni, he’s got the same problem at home as his own Democratic Party falters. In the end, outcomes matter, and no amount of squealing about “democracy” is going to keep convincing people to vote against their own interests, whether in Europe or in the United States.

Analysis: Federal Judge Charts Path to Upholding Felon Gun Bans

We now have a new framework for how the federal prohibition on felons owning guns could be constitutional.

District Judge David Counts of Western Texas upheld the conviction ban this week. That’s despite the fact that he struck down the federal ban on people indicted for felonies receiving firearms just a few days beforehand. And he did it under the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard, making him among the first to apply it to federal law.

His logic will sound familiar to anyone who followed his opinion in the indictment case. After calling into question the constitutionality of the indictment ban under Bruen’s text-and-tradition standard, he did the same for the conviction ban.

“Whether this Nation has a history of disarming felons is arguably unclear—it certainly isn’t clearly ‘longstanding,’” Counts said in that ruling, dismissing a claim made in the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision.

However, he also outlined how he believed the conviction ban could be constitutional under the Bruen test even without a historical gun law as an analogue. Instead of relying on gun laws, Counts argued, it is better to look at how groups have been excluded from the political rights afforded to “the people.” Those historical examples provide a better guide, he said.

And now, just a few days after laying out his hypothetical test for the convicted felon prohibition, he has applied it in practice. He relied on the fact that governments in the early days of the republic prohibited people from voting if they had been convicted of certain crimes and those inciting people to violence could be prohibited from assembling in public.

“Indeed, there was a ‘longstanding’ historical tradition from the time of ratification that those convicted of a crime could be excluded from the right to vote,” Counts wrote. “For example, one year after the Second Amendment’s ratification, Kentucky’s Constitution stated, ‘[l]aws shall be made to exclude from… suffrage those who thereafter be convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ Vermont’s Constitution followed one year later, authorizing the removal of voting rights from those engaged in bribery or corruption during elections. As of 2022, only two states and the District of Columbia do not restrict felons’ voting rights.”

This framework is similar in some respects to one used by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in Kanter v. Barr. Barrett argued in her dissent that those convicted of felonies could be prohibited from owning guns (though only if they committed violent felonies) because there was a tradition of barring dangerous groups from gun ownership as evidenced by early republic bans on Native Americans and Catholics owning guns. New York has sought to use the same argument to defend its gun laws in court.

Of course, the main problem with the Barrett approach is it relies exclusively on bigoted gun bans and attempts to generalize and sterilize them as applying to those early Americans considered “dangerous.” But it is highly questionable why the bans presented as evidence for this theory only fell along racial and religious lines. It seems dangerousness was playing a secondary role in those particular bans.

The Counts approach is not as susceptible to that pitfall. Clearly blacks, other minorities, and women were also excluded from protections afforded to “the people” in the founding era. Certainly, they were denied the right to vote in nearly all circumstances, and blacks in particular were denied all of their rights.

In fact, people in the founding era were as likely to be excluded from protections afforded to “the people” as they were to be included in them. So, relying on that approach for justifying modern gun bans has the potential to result in a fairly broad reading of what’s permissible under the Second Amendment.

Still, the Counts approach does at least provide some examples of longstanding rights restrictions that are based on a person’s criminal actions rather than their race or creed. So, it has a bit more to stand on.

Although, there are other weaknesses too. The number of crimes covered under modern felony laws dwarfs the number in the founding era. While the analogue of felons being prohibited from voting seems to fit fairly well with felons being barred from owning guns, the ban on inciting speech isn’t really the same since it isn’t a permanent ban on protesting for the offender.

It’s likely federal courts will refine the Counts approach if they do adopt it as a framework moving forward. His framework isn’t without its problems, and it’s among the first attempt at reconciling federal gun prohibitions with the Bruen standard. But it has the potential to become very influential among Counts’ piers moving forward.

DEMONIZING GUN ADS IS A MISGUIDED WITCH HUNT

Gun control advocates are ready to start grabbing pitchforks and torches in their attempt to drive out firearm manufacturer advertisements. They fear that today’s advertising is running to a tipping point where they need to rally the villagers to chase the monster pieced together by mad gun advertisers out of town.

Today’s gun ads, they claim, are a horrific menagerie of “toxic masculinity,” fearmongering and anti-government militancy. Except none of that is true. Gun control’s efforts are more like a witch hunt, and more like Monty Python’s version of one depicted in the cult classic, “The Holy Grail.”

They’re too busy clanging alarm bells to roust of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to realize that the monster they’re chasing doesn’t exist. The real monsters are the criminals, not the law-abiding gun owners who are lawfully purchasing firearms for self-defense, recreational shooting and hunting.

They want to muzzle and silence our industry so the American heritage and tradition of hunting and the shooting sports is not passed on to the next generation.

Defining Acceptable Ads

Adweek was the latest to weigh in. The advertising trade publication, which regularly highlights efforts by various gun control groups to demonize lawful gun ownership, posted a feature claiming that today’s gun ads are turning America’s children into “extremists.”

The article focuses on an effort by lawmakers to pressure the FTC to abandon their neutrality and deny gun manufacturers the ability to advertise. They say the ads of yesteryear of plaid-clad hunters unwrapping a rifle under the tree are acceptable, but today’s advertising that draws on patriotism and self-reliance is a bridge too far. They want the FTC to burn gun manufacturers at the metaphorical stake and cut out their tongues.

That is a pretty big leap to suggest that Americans – even youth – exposed to firearm ads will poison their minds. Guns have been advertised for decades, even guns offered in youth models. Mechanix Illustrated ran an ad in 1954 for a Remington .22-caliber rifle, featuring a youth holding a rifle he received as a Christmas present. Sears Roebuck listed firearms in their catalog in 1897, featuring a shotgun for $7.95 and would even deliver a revolver to a mailing address.

Clearly, government regulations restricted that years ago. Even toy guns, like Mattel’s #2 M-16 were featured in 1967 with “braap, brra-a-a-a-ap, brap, brap,” sounds were advertised. None of that turned America’s youth into murderers. In fact, recreational shooting, including the scholastic shooting sports, ranks among the safest sporting activities. Golf, walking and tennis report more injuries than hunting and trap and skeet shooting reports just 0.1 percent of injuries.

Intellectually Dishonest

That is because the shooting sports are heavily supervised. Basic foundational safety rules are a must and are drilled into every gun owner. Children are admonished to only handle firearms under the direct supervision of a responsible adult.

Critics of lawful firearm ownership are being intellectually dishonest when they say it is advertising that is causing out-of-control crime rates or horrific murders. They know this is not true. It is not as if these are individuals who are not academically accomplished. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was once a professor at Harvard University. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) was Yale Law School graduate who also served as Connecticut’s attorney general. They are not uneducated. They are just being dishonest.

They do not want to admit that the soft-on-crime policies they espouse are not making our communities safer. They would rather latch onto every gun control notion they can and mispresent to America that the societal ills are the fault of the firearm industry that they have made a career demonizing. It plays well to their voters when they do not have to admit their policies are failing. It is easier to cast blame and malign an industry, tell America that murderers are not individuals with craven hearts who couldn’t care less about the law, much less the value of human life. It is easier to ignore that the responsible firearm industry offers Real Solutions® than admit law-abiding gun owners are invested in safe and responsible ownership.

Do not believe their false and misleading claims that the firearm industry is evil. They are the ones selling pitchforks and torches.